Blog Post # 1: Please respond to the following prompt by 5:00 pm on Friday, September 4

This semester, I'm very excited to be taking Professor Walker's Surveying Byzantium research seminar, which I am hoping will help to fill some of the gaps in my knowledge of the Byzantine Empire and its history in preparation for my thesis this semester (and hopefully later long-term study!) as well as place knowledge I'm familiar with in new, intriguing lights. I'm looking forward to delving more into Byzantine materiality this semester and the more theoretical frameworks through which the Byzantines viewed objects, icons, and examples of courtly art. Some of the class work that has been most interesting to me throughout my time at Bryn Mawr, however, has been remarkably unrelated to my academic interests and has helped me find new thoughtful angles for arguments and ideas. So, I am trying to go into this semester with as open a mind as possible! Ioli Kalavrezou's work on Byzantine understandings of materiality and light have stood out to me in previous semesters in conversation with Roland Betancourt's work on wall mosaics and the Daphni Monastery. I am looking to put this scholarship into more serious conversation with Byzantinists who have worked more specifically on medieval eastern European Orthodox church icons and art that seem to share syncretic similarities with the art of the Byzantine tradition. As a possible thesis direction, I am hoping to draw these scholars' interests in shiny materiality together with what scholars such as Eva Bakalova and Rossitza Schroeder have written about Boyana Church, a small chapel just outside of Sofia, Bulgaria: the interior of which is entirely covered in 10th-13th century wall paintings. Possibly my personal interest in patterns of Byzantine angel representation (as discussed at length by Glenn Peers) and Byzantine angels' relationships with eye-catching, luminous material motifs may also factor into ideas for research questions to pursue!